Analog SFF, May 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Kimball shrugged. “It's not him I feel sorry for.”

  Jennifer's eyes glinted brightly in the light of the fire. She said, “It's not fair, is it?”

  And there was nothing to be said to that.

  Copyright © 2009 Steven Gould

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  * * *

  THE BROTHER ON THE SHELF

  Philip Edward Kaldon

  It's easy to romanticize war when it's too distant to seem real. But there may be new ways to bring the reality home....

  Tuesday 14 July 2882

  Summer streets had been dusty in Ames, Iowa for so long, it was just an accepted part of the season. Construction had removed some old homes on Lewis Street west of the university and the vacant lots added to the dust. Across the ruts left over from the bulldozers last year, two small figures maneuvered their bicycles with care. The enercells on the bikes were pretty run down, so they had to pedal with great effort in the lower gears without motorized boost to climb over the steep ridgeline made from great piles of construction dirt, but from there it became almost an easy glide down to the break in the chain link fence on the other side.

  “Come on,” Billy Johnson called out to his brother Connor. “Nobody in this unit falls behind!”

  “Easy for you to say,” the smaller boy scowled. There were three long years between them, but he still made an effort to catch up.

  It was Tuesday and that meant Mr. McPherson had the new packets of trading cards in at the store—and the Johnson boys had to get there first.

  * * * *

  “What'll it be, gentlemen?” old Mr. McPherson leaned over his counter and smiled down at the boys.

  “Coke,” Billy said without hesitation.

  Connor thought about it some, then settled on, “Strawberry.”

  “One Coca-Cola, one Strawberry Poporific comin’ up,” Mr. McPherson repeated.

  As he opened the cooler and pulled out two stiff semi-triangular cylinders, the two boys stepped purposefully over to look at a rack display of foil packets. It all required a special kind of scrutiny. First of all, they were only interested in Series 118 today—the 118th week of the war against the Enemy aliens. Second, you really had to make sure the metal foils were intact. Third, you had to hold them up to the window and make sure the sunlight didn't make it through. Only then did you decide to take the chance and figure out which packets you wanted.

  “Pop and two packs of FleetCards.” Mr. McPherson checked the autoscan. “That'll be two dolleros thirty-eight each, gentlemen.”

  Each of the boys solemnly put one dollero coin and one two-dollero coin on the counter, and then collected the sixty-two centidolleros in change.

  “See you gentlemen next week,” Mr. McPherson smiled again at the two boys.

  “'Bye,” Billy managed. Connor already was sucking on his drink.

  * * * *

  The bikes were carelessly dumped at the edge of the sidewalk, not more than three meters from the tree the boys camped out under.

  Billy tore open his first packet and began to sort the cards aloud, “Dead, dead, probably okay, don't know.” The piles were of Fleet warships he knew were destroyed in the war, and those that were at risk or not at all. A typical card showed the USFS Broward T. Lee (FFL-2714). The small Callisto frigates had been ordered out of the war zone early on, but a number had been caught out there in the first battles. The Lee wasn't one of those, so it was an easy bet it was probably okay today.

  Speed was of the essence. An L-shaped conductive edging on two sides of each card formed an antenna to pick up the signals from the six Toyo gaming satellites—they passed roughly overhead every fifteen minutes, so sometime after they opened the packets, the cards would begin to update. Billy was already stuffing the cheap flat gum from his second packet into his mouth before Connor had finished sorting his first.

  “What's that?” Billy demanded to know.

  “Cruiser. CCK-7, the USFS Geneva,” Connor replied without missing a beat.

  “Huh. Don't know that one.”

  “I know,” the younger brother nodded. Cruisers were good. A cruiser neither one of them had ever heard of was even better. Billy would want the new card, but Connor would have to be quick on the trade. The clock was ticking and a dead cruiser wasn't as valuable as an active-duty cruiser.

  “Whatcha want?”

  Connor didn't smile. But he was thinking two destroyers. Maybe one of the oddball Survey ships.

  Billy's comm link shrilled in his pocket. He ignored the noise while he thought. This time Connor did smile. He now had a way to increase the pressure. “You gonna answer that?”

  “'M busy.”

  “Two destroyers. An’ a Survey.”

  “You're crazy.”

  “Take it or leave it. I've got the cruiser.” Connor held the Geneva card up towards the Sun, as if begging the satellite to come over the horizon and burn in the black death border—or not. “A ship of heroes.”

  “You don't know that,” Billy couldn't stand the taunt.

  The comm link shut up. It meant another minute to go.

  “All I know is that I got the cruiser.”

  "Billy? Billy Johnson—this is your mother speaking."

  The boy screwed up his face while fanning the cards in front of him. He ignored the voice coming from the nearest light pole.

  “Your mother is speaking,” Connor pointed out helpfully.

  “She's your mother, too.”

  “I'm not the one she's tryin’ to yell at.”

  “I'm busy.”

  "Billy—you have two minutes to get back here. And that goes for you, too, Connor Johnson."

  “See?” Billy sneered at his brother.

  “You want the cruiser?”

  Billy stood up. Finally he spat on his right hand and held it out. “Deal.”

  Connor repeated the age-old ritual. “Deal.”

  * * * *

  Saturday 20 May 2890

  “This time tomorrow you'll be on the Moon,” Connor said.

  “Yup.”

  The two teens lay on the floor of Billy's darkened room, the ceiling blazing with a simulated view of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. Connor waved his hand and zoomed in on some obscure star system mentioned in a news story about the war. Billy had signed up for Unified Star Fleet duty—you could get in at seventeen with your parent's signature—and he had to report for training on Monday.

  “That's the battle at GK-6b,” Billy said, taking in the star formations. “Three Enemy mediumweights and a heavyweight. The destroyer Watchtower took heavy damage and the cruiser Bridgeport destroyed with all hands.”

  “And the British cruiser HMS Responsible,” Connor added. “Both toast.”

  “Not fair that the smaller ship survived and the two capital ships didn't.”

  “Well, the cruisers did double-team the heavyweight and take it out. That's just asking for trouble.”

  “Yeah, but it's still a pretty high price to pay,” Billy said.

  “We used to think it was all heroes being born out there.” Connor paused then turned his head towards his brother, who looked very serious at the moment. “You still okay with joining up?”

  Billy's big grin returned. “Oh sure. I mean, we both know what I'm getting into. Some ships buy it, a lot don't. It's a war—a real interstellar war with aliens. Fleet needs crews, but it's still a risk. There's probably a lot of enlistees who don't know the real score.”

  “We used to be such kids.”

  “Well, one of us isn't.” Moments after the jibe settled into the darkness, Connor jumped on his brother. As they wrestled, the phrase once more, for old time's sake came unbidden to both of them, but they never mentioned it aloud.

  Some things brothers just knew.

  * * * *

  Four days later and Spaceman Trainee Billy Johnson sent a picture of himself in a spacesuit standing on the actual surface of the Moon for the first time. Space, he told Connor in a long phon
e call, was a lot more serious than they'd known on Earth. Already today they'd had one casualty when the massive gang airlock had gone vacuum. “But don't tell Mom that. She wouldn't understand.” No one was yet saying whether the person whose suit hadn't been properly sealed was going to make it.

  After the shock wore off, Billy assured Connor that he'd work as hard as he could in training.

  “There's already talk that the war may end soon. I'm just hoping there's still something I can do before it's over.”

  “Besides come back,” Connor had said, instantly regretting his choice of words.

  But when Billy replied after the three-second roundtrip delay, his infectious grin was back. “There are a lot of people in Fleet dedicating themselves to bringing back everyone they can.”

  Thursday 11 January 2891

  Connor Johnson knew he'd received a new letter before lunch, but he saved it until after school. Ever since his older brother took an early enlistment after his seventeenth birthday, Connor kept a little ritual with each new message. Only after he settled into the crook of their favorite climbing tree, four meters off the ground, did he pull out his datapad. This letter was dated Christmas 2890, “Somewhere in West Space.” Whether Billy was being coy or under strict orders not to reveal their position, it wasn't a helpful description, covering half a billion cubic light years. What Billy could tell his brother back in Ames was that the rumors flying around about a Fleet victory were making it a question of when, not if. Contact had been made with Enemy worlds and they had the Enemy fleet on the run out of human space.

  Billy served on a brand new Callisto frigate, the USFS Milwa Burema, and had told Connor of a few adventures during their shakedown out there. Once deemed too light for use in the war zone, the Burema held ten times the firepower of a prewar FFL and was fast, too. Most of this letter consisted of funny stories about life out there, along with two pictures of another young Basic Spaceman named Tonya, of whom Billy seemed to write an obsessive amount lately. It made Connor smile, even as he read the letter for the second time.

  There was, however, one more part of the ritual. Stuck to the bottom of his datapad was a foil shield pouch, which contained one lone FleetCard. Billy had loved the big cruisers when they were kids, but every one of Billy's FleetCard cruisers now sported a black border. Pulling his last card out of the pouch, Connor sat quietly in the cold winter afternoon. It had been hard to find one specific warship out of the thousands of ships in Fleet, but he had a strong reason for having this exact card and so sought one from a dealer off the net. He stared at the image of the black and gray wedge, the notation FFL-2890 in crisp Fleet lettering. Twenty minutes later and still no change in the card, so Connor sealed it back up, then went home to show Mom the new letter.

  It was terrible being fourteen when all this history was being made all around you every day.

  * * * *

  Sunday 2 August 2939

  “Hold on,” the old man said, as the three children chased a little girl around the patio chairs. “You're going to get hurt. What are you playing at?”

  The others ran off laughing. The little girl looked up at her Grandpa Connor and folded her arms. “They wanted to play Fleet ‘n’ Enemies—they always make me play the nasty Enemy alien.”

  “Doesn't sound like too much fun,” the old man nodded.

  “It isn't,” she assured him. Then she cocked her head to one side. “What did you do in the war, Grandpa?”

  “Oh, I was too young to go,” he said. “The war ended before I could sign up. You should go ask your Great-uncle Billy.”

  “Great-uncle Billy?”

  “My brother,” the old man said. “He's one of your dead uncles. Now he was in the war.”

  “He was?”

  “Yup. He was a young man, too. Doesn't talk about it unless you ask. But he saw some action out there. And it was nothing like being chased around the house,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

  “Hey, Jimmy!” his granddaughter yelled as she ran away.

  He didn't hear the rest, instead enjoying his sit in the warm Iowa sunlight. No, Connor Johnson told himself, he hadn't been in the war. Just as well. He knew now it wasn't the romantic space adventure he and Billy had dreamed of so long ago. In his wallet lay an old FleetCard, the plastic long discolored with age, the black border from Billy's last misadventure with the Enemy still showing.

  Go ask your Great-uncle Billy about the war, he thought. Does he have a tale to tell.

  From inside the house Connor Johnson heard his brother Billy's laugh—forever seventeen-going-on-eighteen. The kids must've found him, turned him on, and told him that Connor wanted them to ask about the war.

  The dead uncle would tell them, of course, but he was just a machine. It was Connor who had the real memories, such as they were.

  * * * *

  Sunday 21 January 2891

  The USFS Milwa Burema almost made it. With news reports coming in of Fleet victory after victory in the previous week, Connor had taken to pulling out its FleetCard every day, just to make sure.

  Pulling out his datapad to update Monday's school assignment, he hadn't meant to check the card just then, but after all those months its well-used protective foil pouch cracked open and the FleetCard fluttered to the floor. Even before he picked it up, Connor could see the border had gone black edge-to-edge.

  He'd sat there for at least ten minutes, unable to move. When he did, it was to check the time. Perhaps it'd been a mistake—perhaps the next satellite update would bring it back. It didn't.

  Two hours later, Connor heard his datapad chime—a new letter from Billy, sent some three weeks before on New Year's. It was the usual sort of letter: chatty, fun ... alive. And it made him feel awful.

  * * * *

  Monday 22 January 2891

  The next day Fleet announced that the Enemy had been defeated. The first interstellar war with an alien species was over. I don't actually know anything, Connor thought, even as looked at the stark black-bordered FleetCard.

  That wasn't strictly true. He'd gone back to the net and looked for a dealer who had a new card—the price had dropped considerably. Typical for a dead ship.

  A ship of heroes, Connor wanted to say. But the words wouldn't form in his mouth.

  * * * *

  Wednesday 24 January 2891

  “Hey, Connor.” It was two days after the end of the war. Connor had still not told their mom about the FleetCard and no one from the Unified Star Fleet had officially contacted them. Voice mail was unusual—doubly so with loud background noises. “Things are pretty much going to hell here. Look, I hate to do this, but you may have to tell Mom. I'm going to stay on and transmit as long as I can.”

  The noises became muffled.

  “Just buttoned down my spacesuit. We're in a fight and right now I can see an Enemy mediumweight through the air curtain—it's probably less than a kilometer away. Ugly thing.” A dull bang reverberated. “Uh, that was the atmosphere, we're in vacuum now. The Marines are lining up. I'm not sure who is going to board whom. Wait one, I've got to help cable up this deck gun...”

  Connor closed his eyes, concentrating on the sound of his brother's hard breathing. This was not going to be easy—it couldn't have a happy ending, could it? Meanwhile Billy described the battle that had started the day before as the two ships slowly closed on each other.

  “Oh, wow! A hit! And another! They've got the fire control system back up and we're pounding those bastards. You should see it, Connor. There are holes in that Enemy ship and big chunks of stuff breaking away. I ... umph ... The Enemy's opened up—we're taking hits now. Jeez, I thought these kinds of battles took place from too far to see, not up close! Connor, you've got to tell Mom...”

  The communication ended and the datapad screen noted the end of record mark. He sat there steeling himself to get up and tell their mother that something awful had happened.

  Then he heard the door announce they had two visitors.

  *
* * *

  The old man came inside, watching the kids on the floor listening in rapt attention to the stories Billy was spinning.

  “We were ten hours behind that Enemy mediumweight—chased them for five days while they tried to get into orbit around UY-343 VII. But we'd already tangled with them and neither ship could fire their weapons.”

  Billy's image glanced up and winked at him. Connor was proud of the dead uncle—he'd built the avatar in computer shop class back in high school, merging all the voice, text, and video they had in the house, plus hours of Connor's own reminiscences. Somehow his programming had captured the best of his brother's nature.

  “Hey, Connor,” Billy called out. “You still got that filthy old FleetCard? You should show the kids what my ship looked like.”

  “Oh please show us.” "Please."

  The old man smiled, reaching into a pocket for his wallet. There were other, better ways to show the kids Billy's ship. But this FleetCard was the only piece of history they had left and the avatar enjoyed looking at the card. Everything else was just data. Nothing had survived the battle except the data buoy with the last communications.

  “Careful—it's old and probably wasn't built to last this long.”

  Nothing but the memories. At least, he realized with some satisfaction, he still had those.

  Copyright © 2009 Philip Edward Kaldon

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Novelette: THE SLEEPING BEAUTIES

  by Robert R. Chase

  * * * *

  Illustrated by William Warren

  * * * *

  Some mistakes take lots of time and patience to correct—if it can be done at all.

  i.

  I'll never court another girl

  I'll stick to rum and beer.

  "New York Girls"

  * * * *

  It was New Year's Eve 2057 and Peter Frondelli was on top of the world. On his arm was Angelina Lamont, the gorgeous bounce singer, and on her left hand was the diamond ring she had tearfully accepted from him the day before. Although the wedding date was three months away, they had already started planning the merger of apartments and careers. Now they stood off stage in the club where Angee sang. It was her break: the time when she could sooth her throat with water and lemon, and her two side men, Shinichi Kanayama and Jose Candanosa, could show their jazz chops to the audience.